The Bardstown Road farmers market had the best omelets in the world. I would pay nearly anything to experience that omelet stall again. Our omelet of choice, the vegetarian omelet, had cubed potatoes, beets, goat cheese and spinach. Most weeks the ingredients were all sourced from the farmers market. Once, when I was about 5, we were in line at that omelet stand. A couple behind us asked if we liked the vegetarian omelet and little me replied with great excitement, “Yes, it’s got beets!” The omelet stand was so successful it became the Harvest restaurant in downtown Louisville. This market and wandering through the collection of raised beds at one end of my parents’ back yard are my first memories of sustainable food. After four years we changed to the Jeffersonville farmers market which is much closer to our house and is located partly under a walking bridge giving its vendors additional protection from rain and sun. The best way to get to know a farmers market is to learn about the vendors, so I have comprised a list of those that we have gotten to know over the years. The Italian lady sells homemade baked goods and excellent jams. Her best item is the vegetable pocket, a completely flat hand pie filed with magic and dill. There is also an apple and cheese variant. As I have gotten older I go to her stand with a set amount of money while my dad is in line for something else to make the trip more efficient. The fruit ladies are a fixture of the market that I look forward to each year. They are the only stall that has three kinds of apples and Asian pears which are like normal pears but have a firm crunchy texture when ripe. Mr. and Mrs. Crumb are the most senior of the farmers market vendors. For some reason they always call my dad by his first name even though he can’t remember how they learned it. They always have unique items on their table. I owe their stand my first experience with papaws and unshelled chestnuts. In these last years of the pandemic, they have decided not to come. The Mennonite family is who we usually get our eggs from. They have always had a baked goods table, but Friendship Bread and pies have slowly taken over their stall. Possibly because they have found that is what sells best for them or is easiest to produce. This seems to be a trend. Almost all the new vendors at the market are selling a nonvegetable product: candles, baked goods, knitted bags, hot sauce and woodworking. Golden Watermelon, Pink Blackberries, and the Honey Stick
The farmers market has always brought variety and new experiences into my life. I remember bringing home what I can only describe as translucent pink blackberries that I genuinely believed to be magical. The anticipation of each year’s berries is my earliest farmers market memory. The second truly magical fruit I have encountered is the golden watermelon; it looks like a normal watermelon from the outside, slicing it open reveals a flesh of pale gold with evenly spaced white seeds. Its flavor is more delicate and floral than a normal melon. It appears at the Jeffersonville farmers market, and I have never heard of it in a store. When I was around four or five, my dad brought one home for the first time. He made me recite the magic words the farmer had given him to say right before slicing it open. I hardly believed that a watermelon could be gold. I loved it. The honey stick is the candy of the farmers market, a plastic tube filled with plain or flavored honey. The end is bitten through, and the honey is eaten much as you would a pixie stick. You never grow too old for a honey stick. Plain, inexpensive and good, the nature of the honey stick makes it the item that best summarizes the farmers market’s joys. Even though going to the farmers market takes up less than an hour a week during the growing seasons, it has an outsized place in my memory. It is a harbinger of spring and fall. There are people at the Jeffersonville farmers market that have known me since I was ten. Wherever I land in the future, I hope there will be a farmers market with blackberries, and honey sticks.
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AuthorI am a high school student who is creating her own blog for the first time for school about our food system and environmental issues Archives
May 2022
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